“This…?”
“This.” She gestures between us. “Pretend you care.”
“Am I that transparent?”
“Brontë,” she huffs, rubbing her temple. “The only thing you care about is our bargain.”
That should be the case, but it’s not. I genuinely want to know what’s been the cause of those sleepless bruises beneath her lashes. I don’t blame her for not trusting my intentions, though. I did have a gun aimed at her head last time we crossed paths.
I wouldn’t trust me, either.
That knife of humility lodged in my innards digs deeper. I welcome the pain along with misery’s familiar company.
“Believe what you want,Petit Diable.Either way, I’m here until this”—I lift my dying cigar—“burns out. So, you can either open your pretty little mouth and talk. Or stand here and brood decades from your rapidly dwindling youth. Your choice.”
Poppy swings a slow glare toward me. “No wonder you get along so well with the dead.”
“Why? Because they aren’t as easily offended as the living?”
“No. Because they aren’t alive to know how abominable you are.”
I shrug, wisps of gray smoke wafting from my nostrils. “Truth.”
For a moment, I think she’ll yank on her helmet and peel away. But she doesn’t. She remains rooted, straddling the bike and staring at the stars with a dose of longing. Like she wishes she could escape to any other world, no matter how far.
“Have you ever seen a cat play with a mouse,monsieur?”
“Oui.Sadistic hellions until they get bored and eat their entertainment.”
“Since the seventeenth century, my family has been the cat. For the first time in centuries, we are the mouse struggling beneath the paw.” She leans her arms on the handlebars of her motorcycle and blows out a heavy sigh that ruffles her sharp fringe. “Poaching our people was only the beginning. They’ve since moved to sabotaging our operations. The cams around every targeted location are tampered with exactly when shit goes south. Day after day, it’s been disaster after disaster.”
“Have you tried setting them up? Staging a coup and slaying the snake once it slithers in?”
“Of course I’ve tried to trick the bastard. You think I’d be bitching about it now if any of the attempts had been successful?”
“Easy,Petit Diable.Only trying to help.”
Blue smoke seeps from her sigh. “I know.”
“Sounds like you have a mole, though.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“And Dantë saidIneed to get laid,” I mumble, crushing the cigar beneath my boot.
Her arctic gaze snaps up. “The fuck did you just say?”
“I said, what is that?” I deflect, lifting a hand to trail my fingers through the cloud of cyan smoke. “Smells nice.”
A beat of silence passes. Her left eye twitches.
Then she cranes her neck and guffaws at the sky. It’s a laugh befitting someone who belongs in a straightjacket.By the angels,it’s so goddamn beautiful.
A corner of my mouth tugs up despite my best efforts to keep it down. “What’s so funny?”
“The—B-Bax—it’s—” She sputters through cackles that sound like crows fighting over a fresh carcass. “Fairy Farts! It’s Fairy Farts, and you think it smells nice!”
Makes zero sense to me. A chuckle still escapes from listening to her ridiculous laugh and seeing her luminescent smile brighter than any star.
